"'No, your honour; it's on the strength of the cat I come to spake to
you--'

"'I think it's on the strength of a pint of whisky, Tom--'

"'By the vartue o' my oath, your honour, it's nothin' but the cat.' And so
Tom then told him all about the affair, and the Squire was regularly
astonished. Just then the bishop of the diocese and the priest of the
parish happened to call in, and heard the story; and the bishop and the
priest had a tough argument for two hours on the subject; the former
swearing she must be a witch; but the priest denying _that_, and
maintaining she was _only_ enchanted; and that part of the argument
was afterwards referred to the primate, and subsequently to the conclave
at Rome; but the Pope declined interfering about cats, saying he had quite
enough to do minding his own bulls.

"'In the meantime, what are we to do with the cat?' says Botherum.

"'Burn her,' says the bishop, 'she's a witch.'

"_Only_ enchanted,' said the priest--'and the ecclesiastical court
maintains that--'

"'Bother the ecclesiastical court!' said the magistrate; 'I can only
proceed on the statutes;' and with that he pulled down all the law-books
in his library, and hunted the laws from Queen Elizabeth down, and he
found that they made laws against everything in Ireland, _except a
cat_. The devil a thing escaped them but a cat, which did _not_
come within the meaning of any act of parliament:--_the cats only had
escaped_.